Here's a collection of vero (stripboard) and tagboard guitar and bass effect layouts that we have put together covering many classic and popular effects in growing numbers. Many of these have been posted on freestompboxes.org, so check that site out for great discussions on building your own effect pedals. Enjoy the builds and please also visit us on Facebook and Twitter

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Wednesday, 11 June 2014

Way Huge Swollen Pickle

Thanks to Kit Rae for the schematic. I've seen a few schematics for this and the Kit Rae one has an extra connection between Filter 3 and the base of Q4 (pin 13). Maybe you want to try making that connection and see what you think.

Info about the original thanks to the Wayback Machine :o)

Stand back! This pedal has more fuzz than a moldy peach. The Swollen Pickle is a 70's style fuzz that goes from mild crunch to Armageddon! "For truly vulgar, lard-assed fuzz, it's tough to top the Swollen Pickle Jumbo Fuzz. Buzz boxes just don't get much more corpulent than this. It's tone control elicits an insane range of heavily band-pass-filtered tones, all distinguished by remarkable girth and sizzle" Guitar Player Magazine (Sept. '96). Units have loudness, sustain and filter controls.

Video for the reissue but it'll be close enough

For those of you who do want to cheat as Javi mentioned below :o), you can do it like this

Or you could build it exactly as per the IC version, put a socket in for the IC and push the transistors into the IC socket. Then you can wait until you find the ICs at a good price, or just until they arrive, and swap over when they do.

It is, but my only problem is when a pedal is extremely mid scooped like this one is, I tend to play it for a bit, then put it away and never think about it again. I just don't think I'm a mid scooped kind of guy.

For those like me I would strongly suggest removing the 47n cap at the bottom right and put it on a DPDT on/off/on toggle. So this switch would be like this:

1---42---53---6

Solder the 47n between pins 1 and 4Solder a 1n5 between 2 and 5Solder another 1n5 between 3 and 6

Filter 1 will also connect to switch 2, and switch 5 will connect to ground.

So when the 47n is selected you have Swollen Pickle mode. The capacitance will be slightly more than 47n because the centre 1n5 cap will be in parallel with it, so to be exact try to hand select a cap around 45.5nF. The centre off position will give you a slight mid boost (1n5 in circuit), and the other position will have dead flat mids (3n in circuit).

The 470p is supposed to represent a ceramic cap, the dark red ones are supposed to represent poly. I don't select components based on the pitch, I do it based on the value, and anything below 1nF I will use a ceramic of some description, anything equal or over 1nF I will use polyester (although I do have lots of multilayer ceramics up to 10uF and so will use them sometimes when I want to save space). I have polyesters with a 2.5mm pitch, but it's also easy enough to do it with box caps by just bending back one of the legs and then bending it out again half way to give you the 2.5mm pitch.

In all these layouts though, don't let the colours used sway your cap selection. They will all work so just use whatever you've got or whatever your own preference is.

mark...problem...i've build it.tried everything but CAN'T verify it.build it with transistors(3904), but i get nothing at all.i have good voltages at all transistors pins, except c and b of q1 which are very very low..all components tested and all in right place.it seems there is a problem but can't find it.mark..could you post a link for the schematic just in case i could help to find the solution

i think i spot the mistake in the layout mark...if i write something stupid, be nice...from the schematic i linked above, we can see that the up left link shouldn't be there. it should go somewhere between q1 collector and 470p cap.and it's in parallel with the 475k resistor which is right to me too.so...if any expert could take a look it would be great. i'll try the "fixes" and i'll post in a few seconds

Not working right for me and I can't figure it out (granted, I've only got basic electronics knowledge). Sound is strange and blatty, feels like notes drop off midway and some notes aren't caught at all, especially higher pitched notes, and seems to drop off more and more as the sustain knob is rolled back. There's also some kind of high-pitched whine in the background.

Haven't gotten it working yet. I'm about to take some resistors out of the clipping stages and measure them, and if that doesn't work, I'll probably just take it apart and forget about it. Already replaced all electro caps and transistors with no improvement.

I missed this at the time Sebastien because of a family bereavement which took me away from the blog for a while and so I didn't see everything that was posted over the period of a few days. But thanks for the heads up.

from this photo i can say that the up leg of 15k resistor under q3 should be one hole down. i don't know if it's the photo that i can't see it clear and it's just over bended. but check it...!! post the bottom photo too, and tomorrow afternoon after work, i'll post my working voltages to compare.mine was from the first layout mark posted, witch had some mistakes, so i made the changes on the existed board.

It's bent, the legs for the 15k are fine as per the diagram. I don't stand up resistors much, I prefer to bend the legs under. Same for the 470p caps too. I already posted the bottom photo, check the second link in that message. Thanks.

here are my working voltagesi've just opened mineman you have to make it work! it's really great.from what i see you MAY have a problem at q2 and q3 base.hope someone more experienced could take a look too...

Yes, I figured I have a problem there. I don't know why they are so low voltage, I checked the resistor values and they all look fine, I measured for continuity and there doesn't seem to be any bridges. I'll get a fresh exacto and cut between the traces anyway, make sure my cuts are completely clean. After that I'll pulls the resistors out and see, and maybe just give up and go on to the next pedal on my list. I really liked the sound of this pedal in videos, but if I can't make it work, maybe I'll try another layout someday (like the one for the dirty donny edition).

Got this together yesterday. I have several pedals under my belt but it seems that every Muff style build goes wrong for me.It works and has fuzz..but it sounds terrible. Probing netted some strange voltages. Q1 c 4.04 b .60 c .29. , Q2 c 3.99 b 1.55 c .99 , Q3 c 2.99 b.66 e.33, Q4 c 2.62 b .67 e .34. The only thing I subbed was 470k for the 475k's and different similar diodes (1n4 somethings). Where should I start to get the voltages in check? Its a transistor build btw.

I just got this one done and it's pretty gated with almost no sweep on the volume pot. I used the transistor layout and added a DPDT switch for mid shift. I also used 12k and 2.7k resistors in series instead of 15k (didn't have any on hand). Any ideas on what the problem could be?

Hi guys, do you know if it is possible to add a gate mod to this pedal, simillar with what you have in the wooly mammoth or fuzz factory? I love this beast but I would love it even more if I had this option so I could save some space in my board.

Is there an error with the layout? The layout itself works but the Kit Rae schematic has a 100nf connected to D1 and D2. My build was extremely gated until I switched the 1uf to 100nf. It's still a little gated bit sounds great.

The Marshall 3005 Lead 12 was a mini-stack with a 12 watt solid state head made in England between 1988 and 1991. People claim it's a gr...

Note

Not all these layouts are verified and some are put together from unverified schematics. So if you have good luck, or bad luck for that matter, then please let me know by dropping a comment in the topic. Thanks.

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